


You Could Taste Heaven Perfectly

by zoemathemata



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Daemons, His Dark Materials - Freeform, Hurt Derek, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoemathemata/pseuds/zoemathemata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> The thing is, Stiles must have a daemon.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone has a daemon. </p><p> </p><p>Well, except <i>things</i>. Things don’t. But that's what they are. Things. Not human. Monstrous. </p><p> </p><p>So Stiles must have one. It's just that Derek's never seen it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Could Taste Heaven Perfectly

 The thing is, Stiles must have a daemon.

Everyone has a daemon. 

Well, except _things_. Things don’t. But that's what they are. Things. Not human. Monstrous. 

So Stiles must have one. It's just that Derek's never seen it. 

He can hear it, or rather her. Her name is Sofer but Stiles just calls her Sofe. Derek has seen the small bundle that must be Sofe rolling under Stiles' too big sweatshirts and plaid overshirts. But she never comes out, at least not in front of Derek and Nisi. 

Nisi, Derek's daemon, like all born werewolf daemons, is a raven. She'd played around with other forms until Derek hit puberty but then she settled into her raven form, like all the Hale wolf-daemons. His human family members have other animals, but wolves always settle to ravens. 

Derek doesn't even know what Stiles' daemon _is_. Watching Stiles get out of the jeep, he just sees the strange lump that always signifies her presence shift and move under Stiles’ jacket. Stiles pulls the neck of his shirt out and pokes his head into it and even from here, looking through the window, Derek can hear him talking to her. _Sofe! Watch the claws! Ouch! That was on purpose, Sofe! Fine!_ Stiles does a weird sort of jiggle-heft move and the soft lump moves up onto Stiles hip. 

"You could ask Scott," Nisi says, nibbling on the lobe of his ear. 

"I'm not asking Scott, Nise," Derek says, rolling his eyes. Scott gets out of the other side of the jeep, his border collie, Juniper, loping beside him. "It doesn't matter, I don't care."

Nisi bites down extra hard on the lobe, pulling a little bit of blood. 

"Oops. What an accident," she deadpans and then pecks at him once with her beak. "See, you don't believe me when I lie to you either."

“I don’t care,” Derek iterates, not flinching when Nisi bites down again in retaliation. He didn’t care. He just thought it was weird, that’s all. In the year and a half since Scott’s been bitten, Derek’s seen everyone else’s daemons tons of times. Fuck, he had to touch Jackson’s poodle that one time and that - a shudder runs over him. Life or death, he is never touching Jackson's poodle again. The next time a rogue wolf gets its jaws in that fur ball, Derek’s letting them eat her. 

No matter who they’re fighting, no matter what happens, no matter if Stiles is hurt or not, Derek’s yet to see what Sofer looks like. 

Not that it matters, like he said. It’s just weird. 

***

Most people can’t stand to have their daemons too far away. How far they can go sometimes depends on the type of daemon. Sometimes it depends on the person. Nisi, like most of the Hale ravens, can get up to a couple miles away from Derek. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to see Derek without his daemon and he can see them sag in relief when Nisi comes back after she’s flown off for a while. 

Peter came back from the dead without his daemon. He claims she’s inside him now. Derek’s not sure what that means. 

No one’s sure what that means. 

No one wants to ask. 

When they’re out in public, Derek knows people just assume that Peter’s daemon is small, hidden. Like Sofer, Stiles’ daemon. 

But the pack all know that Peter came back without her. 

Nisi flies in through the window Derek leaves open for her. She likes to be on her own sometimes and he never worries about her. She always comes back. She swoops in fast and quick, coming to a light perch on his shoulder. 

“I heard Juniper and Keelin talking about Sofer.”

Juniper is Scott’s border collie damon and Keelin is Isaac’s ring-tailed lemur. Keelin and Juniper are as close as Isaac and Scott and it’s common to see Keelin clinging to Juniper during long runs through the forest. Scott and Isaac spend a lot of time together and Derek’s not surprised their daemons are thick as thieves. 

He can’t stop his ears from perking up at Nisi’s words and he knows there’s no point in claiming he’s not interested in what she has to say. She’ll just bite him on the earlobe. 

“Keelin wanted to know if Juniper’s ever seen Sofer. Juniper said of course she’d seen Sofer - they’ve known Stiles forever.”

When Nisi doesn’t continue, Derek knows it’s because she wants him to ask. Nisi is a brat. 

“So? What else did they say?”

Nisi’s wings flutter as she shakes herself a bit and grooms her feathers with her beak. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

“Nise,” Derek warns. 

Nisi’s wings shirr and she settles closer to his ear. “Keelin asked how come we never see Sofer. Juniper said that Stiles and Sofer were with his mother and her daemon when she died. There was a car accident and Stiles and Sofer were trapped with them. Stiles was eight.”

Derek feels his chest clench at the thought, imaging how small and young Stiles must have looked then. 

“She died in the car before they could get rescued. They were stuck in there for two hours. When she died,” Nisi continues her chirring voice soft and low, “Sofer shifted to match Stiles’ mom’s daemon. She never changed back again.”

“When he was only eight?” Derek asks. Daemons didn’t usually settle until puberty. Eleven years old would be considered early. Ten was unheard of. Derek had never heard of anyone’s daemon settling so early. 

“She doesn’t like to come out. Juniper says she’ll come out when it’s just Scott and Stiles. Juniper thinks she’s also come out maybe once or twice in front of Lydia and Penwyn.”

Penwyn is Lydia’s orangutang daemon. Derek swears he’s smarter than most humans. He has a way of staring at you with the same intensity as Lydia - like he knows all your thoughts and is judging you. And you’re failing. Badly. 

“Did Juniper say what Sofer is?”

Nisi preens a bit, puffing out her chest feathers. “Yes.”

Derek waits but Nisi doesn’t divulge her secret. 

“Nise!” he hisses. 

“Alright!” she chirrs back at him. “Juniper said Sofer’s a fox. A fennec fox.”

Derek could pretend he knows what that is but Nisi knows he doesn’t. He gets up from bed to go to his computer, feeling Nisi’s feet shift on his shoulder, claws digging in, to keep her balance as he moves. He clicks on the images tab of his search engine and stares at the large-eared, slightly delicate and feminine looking creature. He can’t help but wonder if Sofer is more gold-brown or white. Or maybe she has black on her nose like some of the photos he sees. She can’t be very big and must not be very heavy. Stiles doesn’t seem to have any problem hefting her slight weight around and she seems to fit comfortably under his shirts and jackets. 

“Why doesn’t she like to come out?” he asks, his voice matching Nisi’s quiet tones. 

“Juniper said she didn’t know. Keelin asked if she was shy, but Juniper said she’s not. Not really. She just doesn’t like to come out.” Nisi’s feathers whirred again as she shifted. “I think Juniper might know more but didn’t want to say.”

Derek stares at the doe-eyed images on the screen and tries to match up Stiles’ personality with any of the pictures, wondering why Sofer never comes out in public. 

***

As he climbs up to Stiles’ bedroom window, can hear Stiles and Sofer. Of course, he can only understand Stiles’ part of the conversation. When Sofer answers back he hears the same sort of chitter-chatter that you always hear listening to someone else’s daemon. No one can understand a daemon other than the person they belong to. But even though he can’t make out the words, there’s no mistaking Sofer’s tone and Derek has to fight back a laugh. 

Sofer sounds just as belligerent as Stiles can be at times. 

“It’s bad enough that you have to drive the mouse. You don’t get to type too. Typing is for human, Sofe. Humans.”

Derek looks pointedly at Nisi when Stiles says that because the number of times she’s tried to peck out something on the keyboard has left many keys pitted and ragged. She shirrs her wings, wapping him in the head with one. “We like to use the computers too,” she says stiffly. Derek rolls his eyes. 

He’s sorely tempted to sneak into Stiles’ room to see if he can get a glimpse of Sofer but reminds himself that would be childish and rude. If Sofer doesn't like to be seen… well, that’s her and Stiles’ business. 

So he knocks on the glass and keeps his eyes averted. He hears a shuffling and burrowing kind of sound and by the time Stiles gets to the window, Derek can see the small lump on Stiles’ bed, covered with one of Stiles’ flannel shirts that must be Sofer. The lump twitches and shifts, probably turning in a circle to lie down as Derek enters. He tries not to stare. 

“His wolfiness,” Stiles says with a smirk. “You need something?”

Derek nods stiffly and then feels Nisi dig one of her claws into his shoulder. She’s so pushy. 

“There’s something in the woods, behind the house. I don’t know what it is.”

Stiles sits up straighter. “Like something-something?”

“Well it’s not a team of lumberjacks,” Derek replies, feeling Nisi’s claw dig in deep. 

Stiles ignores Derek’s tone and points to his bed, indicating Derek should take a seat and then turns himself around to start working at the computer. “So creature-feature it is then. What do you got?”

Derek hesitates at the bed, seeing the small lump that’s Sofer underneath the flannel shirt. It shifts and moves a bit. It’s close to the corner, but not so close that he can’t sit down. “Sit!” Nisi hisses in his ear, pecking him with her beak. He glares at her. What a brat.

“There’s this smell, like cloves and oranges. And some of the patches of ivy and clover are growing weird.”

He watches the back of Stiles’ head as he types into the computer, the keys making a clicking-clacking kind of sound. “So different smell, some affect on the local vegetation. Any affect on the animals?”

Derek frowns and looks at Nisi. She chatters in his ear, “There are less birds about and fewer small woodland creatures. Rabbits, squirrels, foxes. The big animals seem the same.”

“Nisi says less birds and less animals. Small animals. No change for larger game.”

Stiles keeps tying away and as Derek focuses on the sounds of the keyboard, he can hear a softer, lighter, more delicate sound. 

The sound of something sniffing. 

Nisi pecks him hard in the jaw with her beak and when he turns to glower at her, she’s looking past him toward the bed, her wings shirring and whirring in excitement. Derek turns slowly, trying not to move quickly. He darts his eyes down and he sees it.

The tip of a small, tiny black-brown nose. Moving back and forth, sniffing next to his hip. He can just barely see the tip coming out from underneath the red and yellow plaid shirt. It’s like a tiny dog nose - wiggling as it sniffs. Derek can also see the soft, delicate white fur surrounding the nose and the start of two or three whiskers. 

Derek doesn’t move. 

“Any dead animals?”

“What?” Derek asks, startled. He pulls his eyes away from Sofer’s nose and looks back toward Stiles, who is still facing the computer, typing away. 

“Any animals dead?” Stiles repeats. 

“Uh,” Derek turns and looks at Nisi and she shakes her head. “No.”

He looks back at the lump of shirt but the nose is gone, buried back underneath the fabric. 

***

Turns out Sprites are more annoying than anything else. Once Stiles figures out that’s what’s in the forest he manages to catch a few of them and set up some kind of truce and they agree to not mess with any of the vegetation around the Hale land and to stay out of werewolf business as long as they can stay in the forest. 

It’s surprisingly anti-climactic. 

Derek can only guess that it lulled him into a false sense of security about the world which is why, four days later, he gets caught unaware by a new hunter in town. He was out for a run, in human form and felt something prick him on the back of the neck and the next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a dark, dank cell.

Without Nisi. 

He tries not to panic. He knows she must be okay because he’s still alive and he feels relatively okay. Except for the wolfsbane laced rope around his wrists and ankles. And the fact that he’s trapped in a cell. She’d been off on one of her solo flying trips while he ran and while they can be without each other, and far apart for an extended period of time, he’s never been faced with knowing she might not be able to get to him. He can smell the mountain ash circling him and Nisi won’t be able to cross it. She’d be able to find him, of course she could but even if she could get underground, she wouldn’t be able to cross the mountain ash barrier. 

Obviously the person who captured Derek knows he’s a werewolf - the wolfsbane and mountain ash state that quite clearly. So they must know he has a raven for a daemon and they would have known she wasn’t with Derek which means they’ve knowingly separated him from his daemon and have made it so she can’t get to him. 

He’s been dealing with monsters for a long time and this is a whole new level of horror. If Nisi can’t get to him - if he and Nisi are separated for too long - Derek’s never seen first hand what happens to people separated from their daemon but everyone _knows_ what happens. You go insane - hollowed out like a shell of a person. A mindless, soulless husk. It’s worse than death. He’s seen pictures and those people aren’t _alive_ anymore. They just exist and their eyes… god their eyes. It’s like staring into an abyss. 

“Well, look who’s awake.”

Derek snarls and snaps in the direction of the voice - a low, honeyed tenor. A light comes on and Derek squints at first, blinking against the change. When his eyes adjust, he can see he’s in a small dirt-floored cell, metal or iron bars, a barrier of mountain ash just inside the metal, keeping him from reaching the bars, even if his hands and feet weren’t bound with wolfsbane rope. His wrists are bound behind him, his ankles too, leaving him in an inverted U shape, on his side on the ground. 

The man is nondescript. Average height, average weight, average looking. He crouches down outside the bars so he’s more level with Derek. 

“Hello, Derek Hale.”

Derek can’t help himself but snarl and snap again. The wolfsbane is keeping him from shifting but it’s in his nature to fight back. 

The man half smiles. “In a few days, once we tame that beast in you, you’ll be a shell ready to do my bidding. My very own werewolf killing machine.”

Derek feels his heart thud at that. No. That’s… that wouldn’t happen to him. Would it? 

“I’m going to rip your throat out. With my teeth,” Derek says lowly. 

The man smiles again. “I doubt it. Like I said, a few days without your daemon and you’ll be nice and empty, ready for me and a few magic spells to fill you right up. You’re going to be glorious.”

The man’s words sink into Derek’s bones after he’s left alone. He feels sick and he tells himself it’s only because he’s unnerved and not because he’s already been without contact with Nisi for too long. 

But he _does_ feel sick. Gut-churning, chest-tightening, cold-sweat sick. It could be the fear, it could be the wolfsbane but he knows, it’s because he needs Nisi. Derek must have been unconscious for longer than he thought. He’s been too long without her. If he feels sick then Nisi must also be in rough shape. The thought of her out there, sick, without him, _alone_ -

No, she wouldn’t be alone. She would find pack. She can’t communicate with other humans, but she can talk to other daemons and she could tell them Derek was missing. She should be able to help find him. 

If she’s not too sick already. 

He tries not to think of her lying prone on the ground somewhere, her black feathers dull and listless. Tries not to imagine that she didn’t make it to someone in the pack before she got too sick to travel. 

Derek curls in on himself a bit, the sick feeling in his stomach getting tight and painful. She must have gotten to someone. 

It’s easier to worry about her than about himself. Easier to think of her being surrounded by pack. They’d take care of her. Until they found him. They would, he knows they would. Derek twists and pulls against the wolfsbane ropes, hoping to feel them start to give. He can feel the burns on his skin - deep and hot. He doesn’t care. 

He doesn’t think of Nisi fading away into nothingness if separated from him too long. 

He doesn’t. 

***

Derek feels so sick the next time he wakes, he wishes he could will himself back into unconsciousness. His body is shaking, his muscles coiling and spasming. He’s covered in a cold sheen of sweat. 

And it hurts. Everything hurts. 

He’s been too long without Nisi. He needs her. Nausea bubbles in his gut and he spits up bile and saliva. He pants against the pain in his chest. His body wants to curl forward, around the pain but the rope on his wrists and ankles keep in awkwardly splayed out. He doesn’t know how long he’s been trapped wherever he is, doesn’t know how long he’s been apart from Nisi but if he feels this awful, if it’s this painful, she must be… she’s probably getting close to… 

A fast thumping sound, faint and a little far away, catches his ears. It’s not human - too fast to be human. It’s an animal heart beat. There’s the sound of scraping and digging - quick, light and sharp digging. The thumping sound gets louder. Derek twists and turns, trying to orient himself to it. There’s a small sliver of light coming in from the door that leads upstairs, to what, Derek doesn’t know. The sliver provides enough illumination that Derek can squint into the partial darkness and thinks he sees the ground in the corner moving slightly. The digging sound gets louder and then there’s the smell of damp earth and the thumping is clear and close.

Then Derek smells something else. 

_Stiles_.

No, not Stiles, but close. Damn close. Close enough that…

Derek blinks when he sees her, not sure if what he’s seeing is real. Given the way Stiles is always able to heft her about and given the pictures he saw on the internet, Derek knew she was small but he still didn't expect her to be so diminutive. She’s tiny. He can’t imagine her being more than five pounds. 

Sofer. 

She pushes her way out of the small hole in the ground that she dug through and makes a beeline for him. She shakes herself all over once, throwing dirt off her coat. She’s pale, even in the half-light. Her nose is a dark spot against the white of her snout. Derek can’t move, is afraid he’s hallucinating as he sees her easily fit through the metal bars of the cage and then paw at the mountain ash line just inside the cell, breaking it. She pads closer to him, her steps light and trotting. He can just barely make out her face - delicate, pointed snout. Huge, sweeping ears. He’s not sure if it’s the darkness or his state, but he can’t quite make out both of her eyes. Just a dark impression of where they are. 

“Sofer.”

Her nose twitches when he says her name and then twitches again as she sniffs him. She immediately trots around to the back of him and Derek flinches when he feels her cold, wet nose on his wrist. He feels the warm, quick dart of her tongue against the flesh of his hand and a shiver runs through him, easing some of the pain in his chest from Nisi’s absence. Sofer’s not his daemon, but she’s _a_ daemon, a daemon of Derek’s pack and though he’s never even seen her before, in a way she’s familiar to him. He can feel and hear her nibbling on the wolfsbane ropes and when her sharp, tiny teeth finally cut through and the rope falls from his wrists, he sighs in relief. He pulls his arms around him and out of the corner of his eye, sees her dart down to his feet and start nibbling away on the bindings there. 

Sofer makes quick work of the rope at his feet as well and suddenly, Derek’s free. He curls forward, around the ache in his chest, feeling woozy and sick from Nisi’s absence. If Sofer’s here, it means they know where he is, they’re coming for him. They must have Nisi. She must be safe. 

He startles, feeling a jolt again when Sofer climbs onto his legs and then burrows against his midsection. 

He’s touching Stiles’ daemon. It’s taboo. Forbidden. But she’s curling against his stomach, warm and she smells like Stiles. Like pack. Derek’s hands shake as reaches toward her. Even though she touched him first, he’s afraid as he reaches for her, that she’ll bolt, and he’ll be alone again, waiting for a fate worse than death. He pets her small head; her entire skull fitting easily in his hands. Her whisker’s are smooth but sharp at the tip and she wiggles her snout when he pets over them, nipping lightly at his fingers when he feels for the edges of them to see how long they are. 

Derek knows he should be getting up and breaking out of the cell and he will, he _will_. He just needs a minute. He can’t help but curl himself around Sofer’s warm, slight body. Her fur is soft and fluffy. She huffs against his waist, leaving a damp, cool section on his shirt. He trails his fingers over her scalp, pausing when he reaches a strange, uneven bit at the top of her skull. He follows it down with his fingers over her brow bone, and then feels her close one of her eyes as he traces the strange patch down, over her lid and then under her eye to her cheek. 

It’s scar tissue. Derek’s never seen a demon scarred before. He didn’t know they could be. He runs his fingers up and over the scar tissue again. Sofer doesn’t seem to mind and in fact it feels like she preens a bit under the touch. Derek traces the wobbly, raised line up and over her eye and skull again and then back down, remembering what Nisi told him she overheard Juniper and Keelin talking about. 

_”Juniper said that Stiles and Sofer were with his mother and her daemon when she died. There was a car accident and Stiles and Sofer were trapped with them. Stiles was eight. She died in the car before they could get rescued. They were stuck in there for two hours. When she died Sofer shifted to match Stiles’ mom’s daemon. She never changed back again.”_

Derek wonders if Sofer matched Stiles’ mom’s daemon so close, at the time of her death, that she even matched the injury that killed them. 

He starts unashamedly checking the rest of Sofer for scar tissue or any other oddities and that’s when he feels it. She’s wearing a collar. There’s a crinkle of paper when he feels around the edge of the collar and finds a small pouch - the kind they put dog tags in to keep them from jingling. She lifts her head up a bit so he can get the small pouch open and he pulls out a piece of paper. The light is too dim for him to read it and he reluctantly realizes he’ll have to get up and get closer to the light source. He finds Sofer’s presence has eased the pain and sickness of Nisi’s absence more than he would have thought, but he still has to make an effort to push quietly to his feet, cradling Sofer close to him as he does. She manages to hitch her feet into the waistband of his jeans for him to free his hands long enough to pull and bend the metal bars of the cell apart. Now that the mountain ash barrier is broken, and he’s free of the wolfsbane rope, it’s almost ridiculously simple to break out of the cell. Derek tucks a hand under Sofer again once he’s out and steps closer to the light. He squints and reads the note, recognizing Stiles’ handwriting. 

_Nisi safe with us. Runes keeping us out. Bust out if you can. If not, send Sofer back with details. We have Plan B._

Nisi is safe. He feels a little shaky and weak in the knees. He looks down at Sofer, settled close against his hip, held in place by his hand and her grip on his jeans. He’s reluctant to let her go, thinking of her having to go back into a hole in the ground, in the dark and having tunnel who knows how far to get back to Stiles. How did Stiles ever manage to let her go, by herself, not knowing where she was going or what she was getting into? Nisi flies off regularly on her own and has since they were little - shifting into a bird form even before she settled and flitting off to explore. But Derek has never known Stiles to be without the soft lump under his shirt that signifies Sofer’s presence. He hitches the light weight of Sofer up, pulling her close to his chest. Now that they are in slightly better light, he can see the twisted scar tissue that bisects her left eye, turning it cloudy and grey, so different from its dark brown counterpart. She stares at him unashamedly with the same knowing look that Stiles often has. 

Derek can get out. He knows he can. He won’t have to send her back into the ground to make it back to Stiles. 

He doesn’t want to put her down but he knows he has to. He’s getting ready to make his way up the stairs, not sure what he’ll find on the other side and he needs his hands free. Sofer goes down easy, getting her paws under her quick and light. She looks up the stairs leading to upper level and stretches backward, lowering her head. Her lips curl back over her tiny sharp teeth in a snarl. She’s ready to fight too. 

Derek moves fast. He’s up the stairs, Sofer hot on his heels, breaking down the door in seconds. He doesn’t think as he bursts through, just sees the man who had him trapped in the basement, feels white hot rage and sickness at what he was planning on doing to Derke, to Nisi. Keeping them separate, making Derek into some kind of hollow husk. The man leaps up from his chair, his raccoon daemon hissing. Sofer bolts forward, taking on the raccoon that’s three times her size and probably five times her weight. Seeing her small frame attacking the larger daemon spurs Derek on and he feels his claws slink out of his fingers. The man stumbles backward, reaching for something, anything. In a spray of blood, Derek claws his throat out. Derek doesn’t feel bad, doesn’t feel guilty. He didn’t feel the need to ask questions or hear rationalizations. He looks around frantically and sees Sofer, covered with small flecks of blood, biting into the raccoon’s neck just as the ‘coon dissipates and the man dies. Sofer does a strange sort of proud shimmy and then darts forward, tugging on Derek’s pant leg, yanking sharply and trying to pull him toward the back door of the house. 

Derek scoops her up, feeling better when she’s close and tucked into him, rather than darting around by his feet. He tells himself it’s because he’s not used to seeing her out - only used to seeing her by proxy - burrowed into Stiles’ clothes. 

It’s bright outside - overcast and cloudy but bright. It must be midday but he’s not sure what day it is. He blinks against the harsh light, stumbling out the door and pausing, not sure where to go. 

“Derek!”

Sofer wiggles and writhes against him, and Derek turns toward the voice, toward Stiles. They’re in the woods, Derek realizes, but far in, away from Hale land. Derek doesn’t recognize the trees or the vegetation. Stiles is few feet away, in the tree-line and Derek turns behind him to take a look at the small, unremarkable cabin he was in. It’s unfamiliar as well. 

He never wants to see it again. Thinking of what would have happened to him in there, to Nisi. 

Sofer nips at his hip, her sharp teeth digging into the skin and Derek realizes that Stiles probably still can’t get any closer, past the runes keeping him away. Derek feels a little woozy and wobbly as he steps away from the cabin, toward Stiles, Scott, Isaac, Boyd, Lydia, Erica and Allison. 

His pack. They all came, their daemons lined up next to them. Scott and Juniper, Isaac and Keelin, Lydia and Penwyn, Boyd and his spectacled bear, Erica and her leopard, Allison and her albatross. 

Stiles and Nisi. He’s holding her in his long-fingered hands and as Derek gets closer he can see she’s shaky and weak, like him. He stumbles a bit the last few steps, knowing when he breaks across the rune barrier because Nisi tries to launch herself at him and can’t quite manage in her state. Stiles keeps her from falling to the ground, handing her carefully to Derek, who cups her gently and cradles her to his chest. She’s making low cooing noises that he’s never heard before and he feels her wings shirr and shiver under his hands. 

Derek feels Sofer push herself off his torso, leaping toward Stiles who catches her easily. She quickly burrows under his shirt and once more becomes the soft lump of cloth Derek’s used to seeing. 

Even though he feels a rush of strength and safety having Nisi back with him and doesn’t want for anything else at this moment other than feeling her sleek black feathers under his hands and her sharp beak against his shin, Derek finds he misses Sofer’s presence immediately, wishing he could have looked at her closely in the light one more time before she disappeared under Stiles’ flannel. 

***

Nisi won’t leave his side. Derek tells the pack what happened to him and Nisi presses up close to him, eventually tunneling into his shirt the way Sofer does with Stiles. On the way back to the renovated Hale house (now the pack house) Stiles explains how Nisi came to him and Sofer, told them she couldn’t get to Derek, that Derek was gone. They used her to find him but they couldn't get past the runes and Nisi could sense the mountain ash and knew she wouldn't be able to cross it. Stiles came up with the idea of sending Sofer in. She’s small and agile and the entire pack and their daemons worked on tunneling through. Juniper and Keelin helped them most with the digging - able to get in deep and help move the dirt out. Sofer had to finish the rest of the way by herself and they just had to wait for her to either come back or for Derek to break free.

Derek’s eyes keep drifting to the small lump under Stiles’ shirt. He hasn’t seen Sofer since he made his way out of the cabin and she disappeared into Stiles’ clothing. Scott’s driving and he and Isaac are doing most of the talking, Isaac in the back seat with Derek. Stiles and Sofer are in the passenger seat; Stiles poking his head under his shirt and rubbing what Derek thinks is Sofer’s back through the fabric. He can see the side of Stiles’ face, his lips curled into a proud smile and his murmuring quietly to Sofer. Derek’s got a hand pressed securely against the slight frame of his raven, keeping Nisi close and safe. 

He can’t take his eyes of Stiles and Sofer. 

Derek touched Stiles’ daemon and Stiles touched Nisi. Nisi was cradled in Stiles’ hands. Nisi smells a bit like Stiles and Derek can smell the familiar scent of Sofer still on his own skin. It’s not allowed. Derek should feel violated. Stiles should be outraged. Their daemons should feel sick and exposed. Instead, Derek tips his head forward, breathing in the mixed scent of Stiles and Nisis, himself and Sofer, and feels calm. 

At the Hale house, Nisi comes with Derek in the shower and he towels her off gently when he’s done. She’s got a bit of dandruff from being anxious and alone while separated from him and he cleans her feathers carefully. She’s silent and solemn while he works. While Derek feels better after his shower, back in his own home and almost back to normal physically, Nisi is still a little wobbly. She sits on his shoulder, hunched down and close to his neck, pressing her beak against his jugular. 

Derek can hear Stiles giving Sofer a bath in the downstairs sink; Stiles is talking to her and every now and again, Derek can make out words of praise for what she did. 

Isaac bring some soup and crackers to Derek’s room - leaves them sitting on the dresser. When Derke gets out of the bathroom he hungrily drinks the soup and shares the crackers with Nisi who drops crumbs on his shirt and then pecks them up later. Finally, he crawls into bed with Nisi perching on his chest. She hunkers down, resting against him and she finally speaks. 

She tells him about how she could feel something had happened to him and she flew back as fast as she could to him but couldn’t find him. She felt sick and disoriented and she didn’t know what to do. She flew blindly and found herself pecking madly at Stiles window. He opened it and before she knew what she’d done, she’d pressed herself against his chest, desperately speaking to Sofer underneath Stiles shirt. It wasn’t until Sofer crawled out of Stiles clothes that Nisi realized what she’d done - she’d touched another human. She’d pressed herself against Stiles, not even realizing it. Stiles didn’t say anything about it. He’d held her close even as she shivered and shirred - carrying her to a meeting at Scott’s house where they met with the rest of the pack. When Nisi started feeling sick, Sofer had curled up close to her, preening her feathers with her little tongue while Stiles pet her carefully on her head and beak. He made her feel safe and like everything would be okay. When they needed someone small and strong to dig under the runes and get to Derek, Sofer had said she could do it and Stiles nodded and agreed that she was strong enough, she could find Derek. Nisi had been scared, she admits to Derek. She’d been so scared. She felt sick and weak, her feathers started to molt. Stiles kept her close to his heart so she could hear his heart beat and he said it would be okay, they would find Derek and his heart didn’t blip or skip - he believed they would find Derek. Before Sofer went into the ground, Sofer climbed up Stiles’ chest, nuzzled her face against Stiles’ neck and Stiles told her to be smart and quick and go get Derek out Nisi had been so afraid all she could do was press her beak to Stiles’ chest and she couldn’t even say thank you to Sofer. 

Then there’d been the awful in between time when Sofer had gone into the ground and Nisi couldn’t hear her anymore and Stiles’ smell had gone acrid with worry and fear but he kept Nisi close, in the same place he kept Sofer, keeping a hand on Nisi and telling her it would be all right. She shouldn't have liked being with another human. She should have felt wrong and awful. While she had felt sick from Derek’s absence, she’d still felt warm and safe with Stiles. 

Derek falls asleep with Nisi perched on his chest, pressing herself close to him, telling him about how Stiles kept her safe. 

***

Derek jerks awake at the creak of his door swinging open. He hears soft padding footsteps and then there’s a quiet thump and the bed dips a bit. Nisi’s wings shirr and shift a bit as she perks her head up and Derek sniffs to figure out what’s going on. 

It’s Sofer. 

Derek can see her at the foot of the bed as she turns in a circle three times and then settles down, curling her tail over her nose. He can just barely make out the scar that starts at the top of her head, bisects her left eye and then continues on down her small face. 

Nisi’s talons dig into Derek’s shoulder a bit as Nisi gets up. She flaps her wings once to cross the distance from the head of the bed to the foot. Sofer’s eyes flit open once as Nisi settles down next to her, in the curl of Sofer’s body. Nisi shimmies a bit, settling against Sofer. Sofer uncurls, unwinding her tail and then bringing it back around Nisi. 

Derek hears heavier footsteps next and door creaks again as it opens wider. It’s Stiles this time, poking his head into Derek’s room. He looks around a bit and then his eyes zero in on the foot of the bed where Sofer and Nisi and tucked into each other. 

“Sofer!” Stiles hisses quietly. “Get out here.”

Sofer looks at Stiles, blinks once and then shuts her eyes, wiggling deeper into the bed. Nisi throws her beak over Sofer’s back. 

“Sofer, c’mon! You can’t sleep here.”

Sofer ignores him, eyes still shut, whiskers twitching slightly. Stiles takes a step into the room and it’s so obvious he’s trying to be quiet but even if Derek wasn’t a werewolf, he’d have a hard time _not_ hearing Stiles. 

“Sofe, seriously? This is - you can’t just - , ugh, Sofe.”

“It’s fine.”

Stiles startles at Derek’s quiet words, arms flailing a bit. “Er, sorry. She just - I don’t know. We’re gonna - I was just making sure it’s all locked up and we’re - Sofe! Let’s go.”

He snaps his fingers in front of Sofer’s face and Sofer’s ears twitch at the sound, but her eyes stay decidedly shut. 

“She can stay,” Derek says lowly and Stiles stills. “You can stay,” Derek adds even quieter. 

God, he hopes Stiles doesn’t want to _talk_ about this. Derek doesn’t think he can handle the talking. He just… Nisi looks safe and secure tucked into Sofer’s fur - both their eyes closed even though he knows they’re awake. The fakers. It feels… right and complete. The only thing missing is Stiles. 

Stiles hesitates and Nisi pops her head up, leans forward, opens her beak and catches the tip of one of Stiles’ fingers. Now that the sick, wrong feeling of being separated from her is gone, Derek feels the thrill of her touching Stiles. It’s a sharp tingling in his gut matched by Stiles quick intake of breath. Sofer gets up from her spot at the foot of the bed and pads up the mattress, coming to Derek’s shoulder and then collapsing back into a little ball, her small body pressed up in the hollow of Derek's neck. It’s a different kind of feeling when Sofer touches him. More like a tickle or pins and needles. Stiles eyes dart up Derek’s body to where Sofer is, watching her with dark, intent eyes as she rests her chin on Derek’s chest, her eyes meeting Stiles’. The best word for Sofer’s expression would be ‘defiant.’

Nisi nibbles a bit on Stiles’ finger and it seems to galvanize him. Derek pulls back the covers for Stiles as he shucks his pants and carefully, so carefully gets into bed. He’s nearly perched on the edge, rolled on his side, his back to Derek, until Sofer makes a grousing kind of sound and Stiles sighs in defeat, rolling onto his back, his shoulder pressed against Derek’s. Nisi hops up Stiles’ body, coming to rest on his other shoulder, a bookend to Sofer’s spot on Derek’s side. Sofer smacks her lips a bit, pushing her chin down into Derek’s shoulder to get more comfortable. 

“You’re such a brat,” Stiles whispers. Sofer’s eyes flick open to look at him quickly and then she primly shuts them again. 

Derek closes his eyes, feeling the warm weight of Sofer on one side, Stiles on the other, with Nisi settling safely against Stiles’ neck. 

**Author's Note:**

> IDEK. This was supposed to just be a messing around kind of thing and then it grew a sort of plot and I probably could have made it thousands of words longer but I've got other things on the go that need to be worked on!  
> Title from Tori Amos' A Sort of Fairytale - it's for the very last scene which I imagine is the closest Derek's ever been to happy.  
> I've been trying to write a porn-y epilogue but I've got to get back to my other stuff!


End file.
